Arnie was in the living room, which faced the small street, sixty feet away from her.
The far end of the train.
She set the Green Giant canned beans down and repeated the question. Louder.
“What?” he called.
And once more: “You feel that? That shudder or something?”
“Supper? Yeah, what’s for supper?”
She pulled her yellow sweater tighter about her stocky form and stepped outside, onto the back porch. Car accident? Plane crash? She and Arnie had been on the promenade on September 11 and had seen the second plane hit.
She returned to the house and walked halfway up the hall and noted her husband, still parked in front of the TV.
They were both in their early sixties, just edging close to the time when they could start compiling dreams for retirement. Arnie was inclined to a motor home and Ruth wanted a place by a lake, preferably in Wisconsin, to be near daughter number two and her husband. This set of youngsters was the sort who smiled, with cheerful groans, whenever Arnie made a cheese joke. Which was a lot. The shudder a moment ago had brought back the idea of terrorism and Ruth thought once more: Time to start making firm plans for that move.
“Not ‘supper.’ ‘Shudder,’ I said. Like something was shaking. Was there an accident? Didn’t you feel it?”
“Yeah, I did, something. Construction maybe.”
“Sunday?”
Glasses had shivered, windows rattled. She’d felt the rumbling in her feet; she’d pulled on her slippers as soon as they got back from the grocery store and finished carting the bags inside.
“Dunno.” He had the game on. He loved his games.
Arnie said, “So anyway. What is for supper. Since the subject’s come up.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Oh. Thought you were cooking.”
“Already? No.”
She returned to the kitchen. Ruth’s procedure for stowage was logical. First, freezer items went to roost. Then perishables that could germify — Arnie’s wonderful word — like meat, fish and milk. Then fresh fruits and veggies. Then boxes and finally the long-term stuff. The cheerful Green Giants, in cans, would be the last to get tucked away.
“Then you’re baking?” Arnie was in the corridor now. He’d come her way so they could speak in normal voices. “One of those pies? I was dreamin’ about rhubarb.”
“I’m not baking either.”
“Hm.” Arnie now stepped into the dining room, adjacent to the kitchen. His eyes were not on his bride of forty-three years but on the stove. She noted his expression of curiosity and she frowned. “What is it, hon?”
“The oven’s not on?”
She waved to it. Meaning no.
“I could smell gas. I thought you’d turned it on. And it took a minute for the burner to catch.”
“No, but...” Her voice faded. Ruth too could smell that rotten egg scent.
“Maybe the city’s doing some work and they hit a gas main. That was the shudder. You know, it’s stronger now.”
“Yeah. It is.”
His brows, set high in his well-worn face, knitted close. He brushed at his thinning, curly hair, walked to the front door and looked outside. He called back to her, “No trucks, no accidents.” He added that a few people were outside of their houses, looking around.
Maybe, Ruth thought, there had been a crash and a collision had ruptured a propane truck. But wait, propane didn’t smell like natural gas. Ruth knew this because barbecuing was one of their most enjoyable pastimes in the summer.
She walked to the cellar door and opened it. She was hit with the same stink but ten times stronger. “Honey! Come here!”
Arnie appeared in an instant. He noticed the open door. Sniffed. “My God.”
He peered downstairs and started to reach for the light, then stopped, as she was about to say, No! Arnie glanced at the fire extinguisher sitting next to the stove. It was seven years old.
She said, “We should get out. We should get out now.”
“I’ll call. We have to call. Isn’t there a special number you call for gas leaks? How do we find it?” He reached for the wall phone.
“Gas company?” she asked, incredulous. “Forget it, hon! We’ll call nine one one from outside.” She stepped toward her purse. “Come on! We have to get out.”
“I’ll just—”
From the basement door a tide of flame and smoke exploded outward, enveloping Arnie. As he flung his arms up and covered his face, he was blown against the far wall and landed on the floor, crying out in pain.
No, no, no! Ruth ducked beneath the raging tornado of fire that swirled from the doorway, screaming her husband’s name. She crouched and started toward him.
Suddenly a jolt sent her to her knees and the half of the kitchen floor where she was standing dropped three or four feet — the explosion had taken out the joists. As the smoke and flames and dust swirled about them, she could see Arnie — lying on his side, swiping frantically at his burning clothing. He was above her, on the part of the floor that hadn’t dropped. From the gap between the sections of flooring flowed dense black smoke, tongues of flame and red sparks like stinging bees.
Ruth struggled to her feet on the slanting floor, looking around frantically. They couldn’t use the back door now to escape — with the sunken floor, the exit was too high to reach, and was bathed in flames spiraling up from the basement.
The front. They had to get out the front. But first, Ruth needed to climb up to the level that Arnie lay on.
“Honey, honey!” she called. “The front! Get out the front!” But the words vanished in the roar. She hadn’t known that fire could be so loud.
Dodging the whips of flame, she started to climb up to Arnie, who was choking and writhing in pain. At least, she saw, he’d managed to strip off the burning clothing.
She put her hands on the end of the floorboards at his level and started to boost herself up. “The front door. Let’s—”
But at that moment the portion of the floor she was standing on dropped away completely and Ruth plunged into the basement, landing in a ragdoll pile on the concrete, pelted on head, arms and shoulders by boards, the kitchen table, cookbooks and cans of beans.
Fire was all around her now: storage boxes, Arnie’s magazines, Christmas decorations, the girls’ old clothing, furniture. And flames licked the cans and jars of flammables on Arnie’s workbench — cleaners, paint thinner, turpentine, alcohol. They could be exploding any moment.
Ruth Phillips understood she was about to die.
Thinking of Claire and Sammi. The grandchildren, too. Arnie, of course. The love of her life. Then, now, forever.
She ducked as another joist collapsed and slammed to the floor. It narrowly missed her head.
Choking on the smoke, twisting away from the needle-sharp embers and the fists of heat.
But then, Ruth thought: No.
She wasn’t going to die this way. In pain. Not by fire.
She looked around, as best she could through the fog of boiling smoke. The stairs were gone but in the corner, right under the ledge of the floor that remained, where Arnie lay, was her mother’s old dresser. She crawled to it and climbed on the top. She wasn’t strong enough to do a pull-up and roll onto the floor above her. But she kicked off the slippers, for better grip, stretched her leg high and planted a foot on the mirror on top of the dresser, feeling a thigh muscle drawn to the snapping point.